I once worked for a company, now public and very successful, where the owner sold 40 percent of his ownership interest so he could access the financial resources required to grow that very capital-intensive business. The new partner brought access to capital, board-level advice, and the desire to have a disciplined approach to running the business, while we brought the domain expertise, winning moves, and hustle that grew the business dramatically.
Although not without some confrontation, especially in the early years, this became a successful partnership where both sides made each other better in addition to making each other a lot of money. The partner learned a lot about the realities of running a growing business and used this experience to make other successful acquisitions. We learned the intricacies of how to scale our business from founder centric to professionally managed and globally focused. However, I’ve found that type of successful partnership is rare.